SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 93 Report by J. M. Cohen -

A prize of ES was offered for a translation of Joachim du BeHay's sonnet : " Heureux qui comme Ulysse. . . ."

A large field of competitors, many of whom produced most pleasing lines, but few of whom kept a consistent level throughout the sonnet, made the judge's task extremely difficult. Having asked that the form of the original should be kept, I was in fact demanding the six-stressed line and the French rhyme-scheme with its difficult repetition in the second half of the octet. Most competitors, how- ever, compromised, and stuck either to the rhymes or to the length of line, but not to both. This was, I think, unavoidable. Spenser himself, in translating from du Bellay, used the conventional English five-stressed line. The additional length seems to make for padding, since the complete content of the original fits quite easily into the shortersEnglish form. I have given one of the three second prizes to Hilda M. Easton for the best poem in the French convention. She succeeds brilliantly in the octet, although she introduces a fresh set of rhymes into the second half, but I feel that her final quartet lacks the bite that would raise her into the first class. H. R. Douglas, another second-prize winner, whose poem has, by the way, already appeared in a collection of Poetry -from Oxford 1948-49, writes the English line but adheres to the French rhyme- scheme. His language is pleasingly fresh; but I am not sure that his opening does not depart too far from the French in quest of rhyme. C. J. Richards, to whom I have also give a second prize, succeeds in writing a poem that captures some of the feeling of du Bellay and has an accomplishment of its own as well. Even though his "perilous seas" is a little too reminiscent, I find his opening, and his close too, deliciously smooth and unforced. I have reserved the first prize for a poem by P. A. T. O'Donnell, which often abandons the letter of the original but most beautifully captures its spirit. No other competitor coined lines as right and memorable as his ; no one else proved capable of translating not only from English into French, but from an old into a contemporary idiom.

Many other competitors came near to qualifying for second prizes, among them Iris St. Hill Mousley, N. V., R. S. Stanier, L. E. J., Olive M. Wilson (who pointed out that the river to which du Bellay was referring was probably le Loir, a tributary of the Sarthe, and not la Loire, as I had supposed), and Walter Percival (who remarked that Lire is a village and not a hill, as I had rather carelessly supposed).

Among the competitors I was delighted to find people from all ranks of the scholastic profession, from inspectors and headmasters, sixth-formers and undergraduates to Rona Homer, a fourteen- year-old schoolgirl, who made a very- pleasant version which was done as English prep. It was a particular delight to the judge, him- self an ex-Member of the teaching profession, to deduct marks from those Who were once his seniors for some line that awkwardly refused to scan, for an ugly enjambement or for an unforgivably archaic "of yore," while awarding points to some who may well have been their pupils for a freshness of phrase, or a clever solu- tion of that most, most difficult line of all, the eighth. May I remark, for the benefit of competitors in any future com- petition I may be asked to set on the same lines, that parodies are out of order and that those writing in Scots must be careful not to lapse into Southern English for the sake of a rhyme, under penalty of conviction for making the best of both worlds.

FIRST PRIZE (P. A. T. O'DONNELL) Happy, Ulysses, when his sails were furled, And Jason of the long-contested fleece,

To find at last the kindred circle's peace, Weathered and mellowed by the ventured world. But, as for me, alas, when shall I see

My hamlet's smoke the long horizon stain? When shall impatient exile tread again His own mean acre's rich patrimony? Rather the tiles of my ancestral home Than all the marble palaces of Rom: Palatine Mountain, Tiber, what are you Lire beside or Loire, my native flood ?

The tang of ocean cannot stir my blood As the soft air of distant, sweet Anjou.

SECOND PRIZES

(Halm M. EASTON)

Favoured indeed that man, who like Laertes' son Has voyaged far and wide or won his golden fleece, And then returned again to live his span in peace Among his friends and kin, wise through experience won. Alas, when shall I see once More the smoke arise From village chimneys small ; when will the time be here When to my home and croft I shall at last draw near— That croft which seems to exceed a province in my eyes? The abode built by my sires, I like that lowly home - More than the blatant show of palaces in -Rome, More than their marble hard the thin slate pleases me, More than the Tiber's flood the Dove's familiar grace, More than Mount Palatine tile gently rolling chase, Soft air of Staffordshire than breezes by the sea.

(H. R. DOUGLAS)

Happy is he who long at sea has lain, Like Ulysses or like the Argonaut, And then returns, with quiet custom fraught, To pass with friends what time he may retain! When shall I see my hamlet once again And smoking chimneys ? In what season sought Shall I re-greet the orchard round my cot Which is to me a wide enough domain?

I more admire my fathers' little home

Than the proud-fronted palaces of Rome:•More than hard marble fine slate pleases me,

More my French Loire than famous Tiber's spate, My Lire More than the Palatinate.

And Angevin's sweet airs more than 'the sea.

(C. J. RicitAans) Blest was Ulysses, schooled by perilous seas, Blest Jason of the fleece, in danger proved, Who sailed in triumph to the land they loved, To spend by their own hearths old age in peace! But I, alas! when shall I see again My lowly house, the smoke wreaths in the Vale, And that sweet memory no time can stale, My garden plot—to me a wide domain? Dearer to me the cot my fathers built Than Roman palaces of bronze and gilt; Fairer than marble piles my roof-slates shine ; Prized beyond Tiber shall my Avon be, The-Malvern air than breezes from the sea, And Bredon Hill shall be my Palatine.